I honestly can’t think of a single reason for this termination. Girardi seemed to do well in New York, he handled the media and the team well. The team actually over-performed the past few seasons when they had every right to lose big and lose often. The often overcame devastating injuries, and they came a game away from the World Series this year. But this is New York, and things like Logic and Reason don’t really apply here. My best guess is there was some inter-office politics involved and the powers that be decided they wanted a fresh face.

There have been rumblings for the past couple of weeks that Girardi’s future was uncertain. Ken Rosenthal wrote for The Athletic yesterday (subscription required) that some Yankees officials had gotten the sense that Girardi was “spent” and “ready to move on.” Rosenthal also noted, though, that there was some degree of tension between the Yankees and Girardi. It’s not clear at this time whether Girardi’s departure was of his own volition or whether Yankees higher-ups felt it was time for a new voice to lead an increasingly youthful roster.

Personally I was a little tired of Girardi’s “Yankees get treated unfairly by MLB” act to the media, when the Yankees seem to get every break possible, and everyone seems to bend over backwards for them, but still he seemed pretty perfect to manage the Yankees. And now we get to start to gossip about where he will go next. Could he possibly head down to Washington? Maybe take a year or two off? Maybe wait for a new opening?

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10 thoughts on “Yankees Fire Joe Girardi”

I haven’t really followed All Things Yankee since I was a kid growing up in east Texas and there was no team closer than St. Louis. Back then you could watch the Yankee game every Saturday on CBS, so I did. But once there was a local team I switched, 55 years ago.

All this is a long way of saying I don’t know much about the ups and downs of Girardi and the organization. My general impression is that the Yankees are a professional, well run organization. They spend a lot of money because they have it and they are trying to bring the fans a good product. Rebuilding isn’t fun.

My impression on the limited data of this playoff season for Girardi is that he is an intelligent and classy manager. He made one really bad mistake on replay, but he owned up to it, and he seemed to do a good job of allocating resources. My impression would be you should hang onto someone like that; he will do as well or better somewhere else. But clearly a lot goes on behind the scenes.

If I remember right, at the start of this season this year was expected by many including the Yankee front office to be a rebuilding year as the young players, Judge included, went through their growing pains. Instead they win over 90 games and nearly make it to the world series.

Maybe our discussion the other day as to the joyful possibility that both managers of the year turn out to be just fired managers will come true.

He was MOTY in 2006, and then let go by the Feesh, I was reminded today while reading all the breathless pieces in the WaPo about how the Nats can go after him but probably won’t pay enough money to get him.

My first thought was that they were doing to Girardi what the Indians did to Hargrove back when — and they ended up wandering in the wilderness until Tito was available. I mean, are you getting someone much better right off? You got some youngsters, so you don’t want to be guessing at the manager spot. They need a secure helm. The Yanks are obviously competitive, so I don’t know that they want someone inexperienced or lesser quality there now. What are your better choices out there? Farrell? Baker? They pretty much need to luck into someone like the Rangers did, if they aren’t keeping Girardi.

That said, I’m a proud member of Hater Nation that would love nothing more than to see them hire Matheny away from the Cards. Please Baby Jesus. It’s all I want for Xmas.

Very interested to hear the real reasons behind the move on Girardi, especially given his only main divisional managerial competition in 2018 would be Alex Cora, someone whose towering self-belief is more than offset by a complete lack of actual experience as a manager of anything. If not their best option, surely Joe G was the Yankees least-worst alternative. My dislike of Cora, by the way, stems from a few years of trying to comprehend his so-called ‘analysis’ on Baseball Tonight. I accept that’s not enough to fully appreciate any deeper qualities he may have, but sufficient to know there’s better choices out there.